First Snowfall of the Season at My American Home!

[Hamartia Antidote]

I also cleared some weed and now there is a nice flat spot of land--about 360 sq ft-- which gets at least 6 hours of direct sun to grow something. But with a busy corp job and so much wildlife, I think growing something there seems unfeasible. Besides, I am always partying and being lazy. My favorite month of the year is April and it is ending and I am sad!

Zero maintenance things for lazy !#$%'s like us.

First remove 6 inches of what is likely crappy soil from an area and replace it with like 10 bags of this.

Miracle-Gro® Garden Soil for Vegetables and Herbs

Find great soils & amendments from Miracle-Gro. Learn more about Miracle-Gro Garden Soil for Vegetables and Herbs, & get product usage details from Miraclegro.com

www.miraclegro.com

No wooden framing or anything needed. You can toss an inch of the old soil on top of the new stuff to even the color out.

Your work is 99% done already. A few years later you may get ambitious and remove another area.

Thornless Canby raspberries. Buy a bag of 3 for $13.99. You get 3 little sticks with roots. Just put it in the soil and you are done (just don't step on it later)

Gurneys

Gurneys

www.eburgess.com

These things multiply across your yard like dandelions except you can eat fruit off the branch. I don't even water them. How can you beat that!. You do nothing and food appears year after year.

Thornless Blackberries

Apache Blackberry Plant

Apache Thornless Blackberry offers extra-large, sweet berries with heavy yields. Thornless, self-supporting canes make harvesting easy. Ripens mid to late June.

www.gurneys.com

Same as the raspberries...doesn't multiply like crazy though.

Mulberries
I have a mulberry bush in my yard and that thing is a multi-armed hydra monster and a survivor. When I bought the house it was 15 feet high/wide with an enormous amount of branches. Since it was shading much of my garden i cut it down to like 5 inches off the ground. Within 3 years it grew back with a fierce vengeance to over 10 feet - multi arms and all! I cut it back again..and it came back even more angrier!

Mine doesn't have big leaves like this one but his description is spot on.

Self-pollinating Peach tree.
Well I had mine for 10 years and then it got some kind of blight...but it was zero maintenance. Not even watering. I bought mine at either Lowes or Home Depot. Just dig a hole 2x2x2 feet and use the above garden soil. Put tree in and that's it.

 

[Meengla]

Zero maintenance things for lazy !#$%'s like us.

First remove 6 inches of what is likely crappy soil from an area and replace it with like 10 bags of this.

Miracle-Gro® Garden Soil for Vegetables and Herbs

Find great soils & amendments from Miracle-Gro. Learn more about Miracle-Gro Garden Soil for Vegetables and Herbs, & get product usage details from Miraclegro.com

www.miraclegro.com

No wooden framing or anything needed. You can toss an inch of the old soil on top of the new stuff to even the color out.

Your work is 99% done already. A few years later you may get ambitious and remove another area.

Thornless Canby raspberries. Buy a bag of 3 for $13.99. You get 3 little sticks with roots. Just put it in the soil and you are done (just don't step on it later)

Gurneys

Gurneys

www.eburgess.com

These things multiple across your yard like dandelions except you can eat fruit off the branch. I don't even water them. How can you beat that!. You do nothing and food appears year after year.

Thornless Blackberries

Apache Blackberry Plant

Apache Thornless Blackberry offers extra-large, sweet berries with heavy yields. Thornless, self-supporting canes make harvesting easy. Ripens mid to late June.

www.gurneys.com

Same as the raspberries...doesn't multiple like crazy though.

Mulberries
I have a mulberry bush in my yard and that thing is a multi-armed hydra monster and a survivor. When I bought the house it was 15 feet high/wide with an enormous amount of branches. Since it was shading much of my garden i cut it down to like 5 inches off the ground. Within 3 years it grew back with a fierce vengeance to over 10 feet - multi arms and all! I cut it back again..and it came back even more angrier!

Mine doesn't have big leaves like this one but his description is spot on.

Self-pollinating Peach tree.
Well I had mine for 10 years and then it got some kind of blight...but it was zero maintenance. Not even watering. I bought mine at either Lowes or Home Depot. Just dig a hole 2x2x2 feet and use the above garden soil. Put tree in and that's it.

Excellent post and almost tempting me to do something like you said! If I allow the weed to come back, then it would be too close to the carport and so chances for snakes to be too close. Besides, the land is already cleared. I should look for some 'zero maintenance' yet literally fruitful use of the land as you suggested. Another great aspect of the newly cleared area is that the location gets the first rays of sun, which is important in winters to walk out to. Oh, I do have a tiller to make things work faster. But I don't have any intention of clearing more land; this was cleared to make way for the carport last spring and some dead/dying or obstacle trees had to be cut down for that--I am sort of a 'tree hugger'!
Thank you!!

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Excellent post and almost tempting me to do something like you said! If I allow the weed to come back, then it would be too close to the carport and so chances for snakes to be too close. Besides, the land is already cleared. I should look for some 'zero maintenance' yet literally fruitful use of the land as you suggested. Another great aspect of the newly cleared area is that the location gets the first rays of sun, which is important in winters to walk out to. Oh, I do have a tiller to make things work faster. But I don't have any intention of clearing more land; this was cleared to make way for the carport last spring and some dead/dying or obstacle trees had to be cut down for that--I am sort of a 'tree hugger'!
Thank you!!

You can easily solve your weed problem by spending only a few minutes in March (like I do) with a spreader and this stuff:

https://www.scotts.com/en-us/products/lawn-food/scotts-turf-builder-halts-crabgrass-preventer-lawn-food

This stuff is magic. I put it on my lawn (although i was late this year) and it will prevent 99% of the weeds that normally popup in May/June/July.

I never have to do anything more..don't need any of the weed killers in summertime as the weeds are so few it isn't even an issue.

All the hours/years of headaches i had when i was kid maintaining my parent's lawn with their weeds is all an old bad dream. Kind of angry nobody alerted me to this stuff.

Although if you have a well maybe putting this stuff down is not a good idea. Mine is street piped in.

 

[ghazi52]

Today our town is having antique car display..

 

[FuturePAF]

Be careful if you ride the TTC. If you “stand too close to the tracks and travel alone” and crazy 45 years old (not a kid) pushes you onto the tracks it’s your own fault. This is what happened to Shamsa Al-Balushi in April.

Toronto Blames Woman Who Was Pushed Onto Subway Tracks: ‘She Was Travelling Alone’

After being sued by the woman for negligence, Toronto’s public transit agency claimed the woman was negligent herself, also for standing too close to the platform’s edge.

www.vice.com

 

[Meengla]

Been mostly gone from here--new job and its pressure. But here is a pic from yesterday. green onions/scallions, green peppers (they are not that hot), tomatoes and squash. But loads of wild blackberries on the property and tons of wild muscadine fruit coming up. In full disclosure: The veggies are growing in a relative house next to mine but we contribute with $ and labor a little bit; I am too lazy for gardening
@Hamartia Antidote : I am still thinking about what to do with that 300+ sq foot of the property behind the carport and your recipe sounds wonderful As of now, some vegetation is growing like grass and weed. Maybe in the fall. The new job is killing me right now. Maybe in the fall. Oh, with the food shortage talk going on, I better do something with so much fertile land so close to me!

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Been mostly gone from here--new job and its pressure. But here is a pic from yesterday. green onions/scallions, green peppers (they are not that hot), tomatoes and squash. But loads of wild blackberries on the property and tons of wild muscadine fruit coming up. In full disclosure: The veggies are growing in a relative house next to mine but we contribute with $ and labor a little bit; I am too lazy for gardening
@Hamartia Antidote : I am still thinking about what to do with that 300+ sq foot of the property behind the carport and your recipe sounds wonderful As of now, some vegetation is growing like grass and weed. Maybe in the fall. The new job is killing me right now. Maybe in the fall. Oh, with the food shortage talk going on, I better do something with so much fertile land so close to me!


View attachment 855418

Glad to hear you can see blackberries grow with zero intervention. Mine are thornless so it isn't a headache to brush up against. Raspberries are far crazier when it comes to multiplying.

 

[Meengla]

Glad to hear you can see blackberries grow with zero intervention. Mine are thornless so it isn't a headache to brush up against. Raspberries are far crazier when it comes to multiplying.

Man!!! You got great blackberries. In my yard, they seem to have a quarter inch long thorns!!!

Oh, yesterday I mowed the 300+ sq ft year behind the carport. Some damn weed keeps growing there. In the fall, I intend to move my lazy butt on it and do something. It is fertile land and gets a lot of sun and is close to a water faucet/house, so easier to manage.

Here is a before and after pic from yesterday. And I have a little gut because of some bread I ate--it bloats me. Otherwise, not chubby. This Craftsman Lawnmower is perhaps the most abused in the world and keeps going on since 2008!!

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Man!!! You got great blackberries. In my yard, they seem to have a quarter inch long thorns!!!

Thornless for the win. But those stalks are tough. I have thick wires running horizontally that i used to interweave the stalks between but now the thing is just like a bamboo wall and I can't even see the wires anymore. Probably used in Colonial days to make temporary prison cells. Good luck trying to get through that.

Oh, yesterday I mowed the 300+ sq ft year behind the carport. Some damn weed keeps growing there. In the fall, I intend to move my lazy butt on it and do something. It is fertile land and gets a lot of sun and is close to a water faucet/house, so easier to manage.

LOL! You truly are Americanized if you have a riding mower. I can't say I have gone that far yet. I had a cousin up in the Berkshires that I visited in the 1970's that had a riding mower that to me looked like the size of a Zamboni they use to clear the hockey ice. I don't think he could drive it under the swingsets it was that large.

Here is a before and after pic from yesterday. And I have a little gut because of some bread I ate--it bloats me.

Well I'm not anorexic that's for sure.

This Craftsman Lawnmower is perhaps the most abused in the world and keeps going on since 2008!!

Well I'm not impressed with my craftsman lawnmower or snowblower. The lawnmower literally seized up on me after somehow burning through all the oil. So i bought a battery one..which is awesome because it is so light the wife now exclusively mows the lawn: https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/team-usa.306182/post-13788476

My craftsman snowblower is just hopeless. If I can get it started (even though it has electric ignition) it can't throw an inch of snow two feet. One time I thought the electic ignition wasn't working so I gave the cord a pull (for like the second time ever) and snapped the cord. It's in the shed rotting away (next to my Generac "Y2K paranoia" generator that doesn't work). Waiting for a good battery one to hit the market.

 

[Meengla]

As I had mentioned many pages before, I was going to post pics of frogs coming to the backyard pond as harbinger of the arrival of summer. They did arrive but alas the wild-pet raccoons started using the pond as their 'latrine'--we now have the 4th generation of raccoons here and we can tell them apart! Anyway, the stench from the 'latrine' was too much in the backyard and we had to dig up the pre-fab pond and expel the frogs and disinfect the area and put some wildlife repellents to be able to breathe in our own backyard!!
This was not the summer I had planned. But what can you do when you do stupid things like feeding the raccoons? They are VERY smart and they get what they want. Had it not been for the coyotes, we would have an army of raccoons by now!! Speaking of coyotes, they do make blood-curdling sounds as a pack.

Here is a VIDEO of a coyote pack in a .zip file (PDF doesn't allow Vids/Audio?) taken from the bedroom window in April. Notice how dark it is!!

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

This is just a casual post. Thought to share to maybe lighten up the mood here some. Showing the first snowfall of the season which is happening today. Already about 3-3.5 inches of snow has fallen here and that's enough for those of us who live in the American Deep South. So far this year, the temp has fallen to as low as 23 F / -5 C, but I have seen as low as 4 F many years ago.

Surrounded by literally hundreds of acres of woodlands and hardly any neighbors, life is peaceful. It can get boring working from home. Sometimes I miss city life but city trips can be made every now and then. Pics show our little house in both sunny and snowy days. A 'Frog Pond' in the backyard which was frozen a few days ago--and certainly frozen again and covered with snow right now. It is great joy to sit in the sun and it is great joy to walk in the snow. The first sign of spring is usually wild daffodils blooming sometime in February. I know when summer has arrived when tiny frogs appear on the rim of the Frog Pond. Distinct sign of the Fall are the yellowing leaves on our fruit trees like peach, apple, apricot, plum, and pear. Winter starts when all the oak trees have their leaves completely fallen. I walk up and down our very long, shaded driveway every season and watch various trees changing their colors as required by Mother Nature. Snakes start appearing in April--but they are almost always harmless and I often just walk past them. I used to kill them and on one day alone some years ago I had killed four of them--I still regret that. So last year I just used jet from a garden hose to make one go away from the front of the house. My company is plenty of raccoons, squirrels, crows, and several kinds of birds. Also there are plenty of deer who take advantage of the safe environment near the house. But recently coyotes have been coming closer and closer to the house and their pack's View attachment 809168View attachment 809169View attachment 809170View attachment 809172View attachment 809173howling can be scary. Then there are more elusive foxes around; I have seen only 2-3 of them. Black bear sightings are also increasing, as the wild-life habitat is shrinking; one was spotted barely a mile from our house some months ago. They are generally afraid of people and go away but a sow with her cubs can be dangerous.


@Hamartia Antidote : You like country life, so might find it interesting.


View attachment 809169View attachment 809170View attachment 809172

I'm thinking of buying this for a sump pump emergency situation

 

[Meengla]

Pics of full moon from a few nights ago: One with clear sky and one with clouds. Strange purple hue is in the pic.
Also pic of a snake from a few days ago--this is the first time a snake is seen since at least last October as the weather has warmed. The black snakes are supposed to be harmless and so I let the chap just hang around the house--I hope he eats some mice!
PS. Isn't this so much better living than that stupid Ambani House in Mumbai slums, which this forum is discussing in another thread, which a gazillion times more expensive???

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Pics of full moon from a few nights ago: One with clear sky and one with clouds. Strange purple hue is in the pic.
Also pic of a snake from a few days ago--this is the first time a snake is seen since at least last October as the weather has warmed. The black snakes are supposed to be harmless and so I let the chap just hang around the house--I hope he eats some mice!
PS. Isn't this so much better living than that stupid Ambani House in Mumbai slums, which this forum is discussing in another thread, which a gazillion times more expensive???



View attachment 929183View attachment 929184

Cool sky pictures!!

As Indiana Jones would say: “snakes…why did it have to be snakes”

So there are snakes in some areas here but luckily not in mine otherwise the wife would be freaking out. We do have coyotes and an occasional bear…but luckily no snakes.

 

[Meengla]

As I just drove home from a restaurant, I saw perhaps the tiniest deer baby ever. First I thought the baby can't be that small! But it was and the mother was carefully watching me as I stopped along the driveway to take the picture.

 

[TruthSeeker]

As I just drove home from a restaurant, I saw perhaps the tiniest deer baby ever. First I thought the baby can't be that small! But it was and the mother was carefully watching me as I stopped along the driveway to take the picture.

View attachment 930904

I live in Virginia along the James River. I live next to a damed up pond that feeds into the James. We see deer most every day out our windows. We saw fawns about 8 weeks ago but not any such spottted young ones since. The community in which I live has a deer herd of ~ 100.